Meant to Be Maddie
MEANT TO BE MADDIE chronicles a decade in the life of a North Carolina transgender teenager as she navigates her identity and adolescence with the unwavering support of her family. An intimate and funny coming of age story, Maddie’s journey unfolds against the backdrop of growing anti-trans rhetoric, legislation, and conservative backlash against the LGBTQ community.
When Maddie was six years old, she started first grade as a girl, the gender she always knew she was. While she was assigned male at birth, she had been telling her parents, Katie and Craig, about her gender for as long as she could speak. After seeing a therapist with Maddie and watching their child suffer for too long, they agreed that Maddie could transition publicly. Maddie’s arrival to school in a dress caused a local TV news crew to film a segment in front of Maddie’s elementary school, without the family’s consent, and claimed “a student who started school as a boy came back this fall as a girl.” Two years later, North Carolina’s “Bathroom Bill” would catapult the state and trans youth to center stage, and Maddie would be forced to walk across the hall from her class to use the only individual stall. With Trump’s election in 2016, the family was faced with the decision of whether or not to become outspoken activists, risking their safety and their privacy. They chose to fight. This decade-long film follows Maddie through adolescence as she and her family work to build a life filled with joy, love, unconditional acceptance and purpose. For Maddie’s mom, Katie, that means going to law school at age 45 to become an attorney specializing in trans rights so that she can be ready and able to fight for the safety and sanity of her daughter. While Maddie continues to find her voice in activism, she begins to wish that she can be like every other teenager whose only worries are getting on the cheerleading squad, passing her driving test and hanging out past 10. With Trump’s re-election, Katie, along with many other families of trans youth around the country, are preparing for the worst. She gathers funds from her savings, requests a loan from her Mom, and goes immediately to apply for passports for herself and Maddie, in case they need to leave.
